The Immediate Effect of COVID-19 Policies on Social Distancing Behavior in the United States

Rahi Abouk; Babak Heydari

The rest of the table presents results on changes in visits from out-of-home places. Interestingly, they suggest a decline in all of these measures which provide evidence that the results obtained for presence at home are not spurious. Among all of the statistically significant estimated coefficients in Table 2 , those related to statewide stay-home orders are the most pronounced ones, which strongly suggests that this particular policy is likely the most effective policy in promoting social distancing. On the other hand, policies such as large gatherings ban seems to have a limited and statistically insignificant effect on keeping people at home. Next, we provide evidence on the dynamic effects of the policies of interests on presence at home in Figure 2 . Overall, except for "other stay-home orders" and to some extent, non-essential business closure, there are no differences in presence at home trends between the states with and without those policies. This is evident through the